Volvo Buses wins digital communications award

Volvo has been awarded top honours for its digital communications on the back of a campaign to raise awareness of electric buses.

The company’s“Light the Lights” campaigntook the overall prize in the 2018 Digital Communications Awards, against competition from major international firms in all business sectors.

The awards have been rewarding innovative communication in digital channels since 2011, and the Volvo entry beat 700 other award nominees.

“We’re delighted that the international jury recognised our strategy for reaching a broader audience in our drive to increase knowledge about and generate interest in electric city bus traffic,” said Stefan Nerpin, Senior Vice President of Corporate Affairs at Volvo Buses. “We wanted more people to feel they were involved in the global development of a quieter and cleaner urban environment.”

The campaign was built around the true story of an unknown struggling artist from Gothenburg, Sweden, who interacts with Volvo’s electric buses in film format. In the film she sings a song she wrote herself, “Light the Lights”. The film and the song went viral across multiple digital channels such as Facebook, YouTube and Spotify. After just two weeks more than 3.5 million people had listened to the song or watched the film.

During and after the campaign, both the artist and Volvo Buses received praise from a wide range of target groups, and the song has become a consistent theme for the success of Volvo’s electric buses, of which 4,000 have been sold to date.

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